Rienzi, Tishomingo Co.,
Miss., June 19, 1862.
This is one of the few days that remind one of Illinois,
although there are very few nights that might not remind a Greenlander of his
home. I think there has not been a night yet that I have not slept under three
blankets, and there have been many nights that I would have used a dozen if I
had had them. The natives say that ’tis the Gulf breeze that makes the air so
cool after about 7 or 8 p. m. I wish that it would get along about eight hours
earlier daily; but to-day there are clouds kiting about so o’erhead that the
sun don't amount to much only for light, and ’tis cool enough to make
underclothing comfortable. The colonel, A. D. C. and myself visited the camp of
the 7th Illinois yesterday at Jacinto. We found them surrounded with a brush
parapet, felled trees, etc., ready as they said for a twelve-hour's fight.
They'd been visited by a scare. There is no enemy within 15 miles of them and
hasn't been. They are camped in the suburbs of a beautiful little town that
fell in among the hills in a very tasty manner (for a Mississippi town). In one
little valley near a fine residence there are three springs bubbling up in line
and within a foot of each other, which are so independent that each furnishes a
different kind of water. The first pure, cold, soft water without taste,
another chalybeate, and the third, strong sulphur. The waters of the three fall
into one little basin and run thence into a bathhouse twenty steps distant.
There is a neat vine covered arbor over the springs with seats arranged within,
and altogether ’tis a neat little place — good to water Yankee horses at. There
were several gangs of negroes at work in the corn and cotton fields along the
road yesterday, and I thanked God they were not in Illinois. Candidly, I'd
rather see them and a whole crop of grindstones dumped into the Gulf, than have
so many of them in our State, as there are even here. Yet, it don't look square
to see the women, if they are niggers, plowing. I have no reason for the last sentence,
only it isn't in my opinion what petticoats were designed for. Talking about
niggers, these headquarters are fully up with anything in that Potomac mob on
the colored question. They got Jeff Davis' coachman. What of it? J. D. isn't
anybody but a broken-backed-politician-of-a-civilian, and of course his
coachman is no better than a white man. But we, we have, listen, General
Beauregard's nigger “toddy mixer,” and my experience fully proves to the
satisfaction of your brother that the general's taste in selecting a toddy
artist is fine. He is a sharp cuss (the nigger). He left them at Tupelo day
before yesterday, p. m., slipped by the pickets while ’twas light without their
seeing him, but after dark he was suddenly halted by their videttes when within
ten feet of them. He ran by them and they fired, but as usual missed. He is
really the servant of Colonel Clough, of Memphis, but the colonel is now on
Beauregard's staff, and John (the boy) was selected as drink mixer for the
general-pro tem. He reports that Price started with the flower of the flock,
only some 3,000 posies, to Virginia, but said posies, like their vegetable
brethren, wilt and droop by the wayside, and unlike them, scoot off through the
brush at every chance, and that is the last of them as far as soldiering is
concerned. Hundreds of the dissatisfied Rebels pretended sickness and lay by
the roadside until the army passed and then heeled it for home. All the
prisoners and deserters that we get concur in saying that at least 10,000 have
deserted since the evacuation. A couple of very fine-looking young fellows,
Kentuckians, came in this p. m. Their regiment with two others are the outpost
guard between the Rebel Army and ours. They were in a skirmish the other day at
Baldwin, where two of our companies were surprised and lost six men, taken
prisoners. There were 60 of our boys and they reported 400 Rebels. These
deserters say there were only 42 Rebels; but the next day 700 Rebels came onto
75 of our men and the chivalry were put to flight in a perfect rout. So it
goes. There was a flag of truce came in last night to our picket. Brought a
dozen packages for Halleck and company, with a number of letters for Northern
friends, all unsealed. Several of the envelopes were of common brown wrapping
paper. There are a good many things about this advance of an army that are more
interesting than the main army the infants know of. We cavalry feel as safe
here as in Illinois, but General Ashboth keeps calling on Pope for more men all
the time.
What do you think we'll have to eat to-morrow? Answer: Lamb,
roast goose and liver (beef), blackberry pies, plum pudding, new peas, string
beans, onions, beets, fresh apple sauce, etc. That's a fact, and we have a cow
that furnishes us milk, too, and a coop full of chickens, maccaroni for our
soup, and we get all the beef brains.
Tell Colonel Kellogg that the boys are talking about him
yet, like a lot of chickens for their lost "Mar." The 7th has plenty
to do now, if I wasn't so tired I'd write you a copy of the orders I sent them
to-day.
The enemy keeps annoying our outposts, and rumors come
to-day of their being on the way for this place to surprise us. All bosh, I
suppose. I hope they are too gentlemanly to disturb us while we are doing as
well as we are here. It would be worse than the old lady where I stayed night
before last. I went to bed at 12:30, and about 5 she sent a servant up for the
sheets to wash. The joke was on our family, but I told her that she had better
let me roll over the whole house if she had to wash up after me, for it would
improve the health of her family to scrub the premises and them. Fine people
here. They’ve commenced bushwhacking. One of my orderlies was shot through the
thigh night before last while carrying some dispatches. “Concilate,” “noble
people,” “high spirited.” Oh! Strangulate is the better direction.
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an
Illinois Soldier, p. 105-8
